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They were not built to withstand “hybrid warfare”. Without them, the economy would burst into flames

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In mid-November, two undersea internet cables in the Baltic Sea were damaged. First the cable stopped working C-Lion1 connecting Finland and Germanyand then the connection between Sweden and Lithuania was interrupted. Both incidents took place within several hours.

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Business Cinawhich manages the C-Lion1 cable, emphasized that at this stage it is difficult to assess what could have caused the failure. However, she added that it has signs “external actions” and cannot be ruled out “intentional damage to the cable”. Boris Pistorius, the German Minister of Defense, had no such doubts. A day after the incident, he stated with full conviction that sabotage had occurred.

Nobody believes that these cables were damaged by accident. I also don't want to believe the theory that the ships' anchors accidentally caused the damage

– Pistorius explainedquoted by Reuters. – That's why we have to say, without knowing exactly who it comes from, that it is a “hybrid” action. And we must also assume, without full knowledge yet, that this is sabotage, he added.

Experts say that we are talking about physical or mechanical damage, this damage is not related to the elements or natural phenomena

– said Vilmantas Vitkauskas, head of the Lithuanian National Crisis Management Committee, referring to the damage to the second European cable.

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“The nervous system of our civilization”

The C-Lion1 submarine cable connecting Finland and Germany is 1,773 km long. It was put into operation in 2016 and is one of hundreds of underwater fiber optic cables, which create a gigantic telecommunications network covering the entire Earth. Their total length is 1.4 million kmwhich means they could circle the equator 35 times.

Map of underwater fiber optic cables photo: Submarine Cable Map

It is estimated that submarine cables carry today from 90 to 98 percent global internet traffic. Almost the entire global economy and network infrastructure are based on the efficient operation of these cables – from global financial markets, through corporate networks, to logistics hubs and finally our “home Wi-Fi”.

“The nervous system of our civilization” However, it is more and more often subject to failures, which can potentially have catastrophic consequences. As informed by the European Commissiona, in Europe alone, there are over 100 damages to undersea telecommunications infrastructure every year. Ships and even fish are responsible for most such incidents.

However, companies managing undersea cables point out that this type of damage is not always accidental. Accusations of intentional actions are becoming more and more frequent, and the word “sabotage” is used in all cases today. Just like the name of the country that would be responsible for these “hybrid attacks”.

C-Lion1 cable installation
C-Lion1 cable installation Photo REUTERS/Lehtikuva

NATO: We are not naive

Admiral Dider Malterre, Deputy Allied Naval Forces NATO (MARCOM), already in April this year in the newspaper “The Guardian” warned that The West's underwater infrastructure is threatened by Russia's actions.

The safety of nearly a billion people in Europe and North America is at risk as Russian attempts to exploit vast vulnerabilities in underwater infrastructure

– Malterre pointed out. At the same time, he warned that the underwater infrastructure was not built to withstand the “hybrid war” waged by Moscow and other NATO opponents.

The cables running under the seas and oceans are characterized by a relatively light construction. We're talking about wires here about the thickness of a garden hose protected by several layers of plastic and an additional steel sheath. If larger fish can cope with them, they can be damaged even more by intentional actions by humans.

We know that the Russians have conducted many hybrid wars under the sea to destabilize the European economy using internet cables and pipelines.

– Admiral Malterre continued to explain. Here he referred, among others, to: down last year's failure of the Balticconnector gas pipeline, which strangely coincided with damage to the undersea telecommunications cable connecting Sweden and Estonia.

MARCOM in May this year. established the CUI Maritime Center for the Security of Critical Underwater Infrastructure. One of his priorities is to be protection of undersea telecommunications cables lying, among others, at the bottom of the Baltic Sea. During a recent conference in Turku, Finland, the head of CUI, Pal Bratbak, announced that pipelines and transmission cables will be monitored using the new softwareand patrols of anti-mine ships will play a greater role in protecting these installations.

At the same time, Bratbak emphasized that the identification of thousands of kilometers of pipeline and cable installations, which are of critical importance for countries, “support from individual NATO allies is needed.”

Undersea cable on board of a cable ship
Undersea cable on board of a cable ship Shutterstock

A threat not only to Europe

In March this year, how serious could even a temporary blackout be? residents of several West African countries found out. As a result of the cutting of at least two undersea cables off the Ivory Coast, residents of, among others, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Gambia, Ghana and Niger have been completely cut off from the Internet. Work was suspended by banks, offices and corporations, which had an impact on the economy.

It also happened in March damage to four undersea cables in the Red Sea. This failure affected 25 percent. Internet traffic between Asia and Europe and the Middle East. In this case, suspicion fell on Yemen's Houthi rebels, who have been carrying out attacks on ships passing through the Red Sea for months. However, the fighters themselves stated thisthat the cable failures were the result of “the militarization of the Red Sea by American and British warships.”

Taiwan also struggles with failures of undersea cables very often. In the last five years alone, the cables connecting the country to the rest of the world have been cut more than 25 times. Officially, these are accidental incidents and are the responsibility of fishing boat anchors. Everyone on the island realizes that these are deliberate offensive actions by China.

In a report published in 2021, the think tank Center for a New American Security revealed simulations conducted by China and Russia, the aim of which was to cut off Japan, Taiwan and other countries in the region from the Internet. As noted by the “Financial Observer” websitein these exercises, in almost every scenario, attacks would allow aggressors to disrupt communications in the US and Europe.

Contemporary CS Cable Innovator in Port Angeles, Washington
Contemporary CS Cable Innovator in Port Angeles, Washington photo: DeVos Max, CC BY-SA 4.0

Cables are worth their weight in gold

The history of underwater telecommunications cables dates back to the mid-19th century. In 1850, a cable was laid at the bottom of the English Channel to connect England and France. He had it, but he didn't connect it because it was damaged during installation work. Eight years later, the first transatlantic connection was established – between Europe and the United States. Even before the 20th century, the Old Continent was connected to all continents (except Antarctica) by cables.

We had to wait until the 1980s for the era of fiber optic cables as we know them today to arrive. In 1988, Europe and the USA were connected by the TAT-8 undersea link, the construction of which cost as much as PLN 350 million. dollars.

Today, optical fibers cover the entire world, and the capacity of these undersea highways reaches 160 terabits per second. Currently, work is underway on 70 new installations, which will total approx 300 thousand km. TeleGeogrphy estimates show that USD 10 billion will be allocated for the expansion of undersea infrastructure by 2025 alone.

Specialized ships are used to lay and service cables cable carriers. Their global fleet currently numbers only 50-60 units, the European Union countries have at their disposal just two such ships and the UK one additional.

This is another “soft underbelly” of undersea fiber optic infrastructure. Due to the limited number of cable carriers, repairing damaged cables often takes a very long time. And the global economy, which today is as dependent on the Internet as humans are on oxygen, cannot afford a longer blackout.



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